Why develop a railfreight terminal in Telford?

Telford is a well established and large commercial and manufacturing centre and therefore it is the natural location for a railfreight terminal.

Telford is by the far the largest centre of activity in the west of the West Midlands and currently has over 28% of its jobs in manufacturing. Many of these jobs are within major international companies operating within complex supply chains which are transport dependent.

Telford has a significant and growing distribution sector and is seen as a developing a regional logistics centre within the West Midlands.

Please open the attached location maps below (pdf format).

Telford (2.57mb)
Donnington (2.57mb)

A railfreight facility in Telford will not only provide existing companies in Telford with an alternative transport choice, but will assist in sustaining existing jobs and creating new jobs by helping to attract new businesses into the region.

There are also environmental benefits associated with switching transportation of products from road to rail:

• A reduction in the number of long distance lorry journeys to and from Telford which has the knock on effect of a decrease in energy use and a reduction in pollutants. Compared with carrying the same tonnage by road, rail produces less than one tenth of the carbon dioxide (a major cause of global warming) and around one twentieth of the nitrogen oxide.

• A reduction in the volume of traffic on the highway network, particularly important as road congestion becomes a greater issue. A typical freight train can carry the equivalent of 50 HGVs. Over the past 6 years, rail freight is estimated to have saved 31.5 million lorry journeys in Britain.

• Railfreight can secure safer roads. Lorries are involved in 17% of road deaths. Rail freight can save lives by cutting the number of lorry journeys on our roads. Since 1997, the Railfreight Group estimates that rail freight has led to 644 fewer deaths and serious injuries on Britain's roads.